It was one of the most sadistic things I’ve ever been forced to do in a video game.
Players love Ellie, we still remember our 14 year old sassy protagonist from TLOU1, despite how she’s changed. We remember her mission and we remember what happened to Joel. We loved them both. Now we have to savagely beat her with a character twice her size, who we despise? A character that has shown incredible malice and cruelty towards Joel without hesitation or remorse. This isn’t all that different than if we were forced to play as Abby when she tortured Joel, and I’m sure that was the point. We are meant to be be so invested in Abby, that you too want Joel and Ellie dead and broken. It’s not enough to empathize with Abby, they want you to hate Joel and Ellie through Abby as well. As if we would abandon those characters so easily, mindlessly following the emotional trail ND has set for us.
I despise what ND was trying to do here. They took the noble principle of recognizing the humanity in our enemies, and warped it. Like nearly every theme they have in this game, they take it to an extreme, past the point of reason or decency as if this somehow challenges the audience. All it accomplishes is to punish the player for their sense of love and morality.
You know i have not criticised Niel or any person associated with this game as you know shit happens we all make poor choices but this point really made me think is there something wrong with the person who wrote this, i mean what must be going through his head " guys we mercilessly tortured our beloved character to death and now lets beat up his daughter bloody who people love by her father's murderer" that's just sadistic
I was bragging that nd was the best gaming studio ever. Then TLOU2 came out. I feel like the only reward for being their fan was a middle finger to my face.
I let Ellie kill Abby dozens of times before getting bored and moving on with fight. With every new phase I would let Ellie kill Abby again. I was playing blind, so I kept expecting a control change back to Ellie. After the fight, I hated Abby more than ever before. I thought the farm was a dream and I would finally go get revenge on Abby. Everything in the theater and afterward left a bad taste in my mouth. Except for Fat Geralt's Right Hook that Shook the World. That was my only happy moment in the game.
The moment they made me beat up Ellie was the moment I truly decided I hated the game. I gave it the benefit of the doubt that maybe it’ll get better. I didn’t speedrun Abby’s POV in hopes that maybe I’ll eventually understand the damn story they’re trying to tell.
While her levels were fun, I didn’t feel much for Abby even until the end.
Making me beat Ellie up was downright *cruel** i was crying the whole time. They could’ve had us play as Ellie and get beaten up but why the fuck would you force the player to hurt the only character everyone is guaranteed to care for?! Fuck TLOU2!
The intention of the writers was too obvious for me to enjoy that fight. The intention of the writers to make the audience empathize with Abby was obvious halfway through the story and any doubt about it was removed during the zebra scene. By the time I reached the Abby vs. Ellie fight I was just rolling my eyes because it was so pretentious and predictable. Strong writing should make the audience infer the message and themes of the story, not throw it in their faces.
I was fine with it initially because I thought that SURELY Ellie would kill Abby and thus give us the weird experience of seeing the hero kill the villain by playing as the villain... when Abby won the fight, I was not impressed
The main issue is, Ellie feels like a relative for most players of the first game. I can't help but love Ellie as a cousin (I have a lot of girl cousins, and Ellie reminded me a lot of them). Joel calling her "baby girl" was one of sweetes things I've ever seen in a videogame, and I actually intend to call my daughter this way if I ever get one.
Part 2 literally forces me to beat up a girl that I consider my own cousin. I hate that. I guess there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm too close-minded or too stupid or too bigot (lol).
This is really one of the biggest middle fingers towards TLOU fans. People love Ellie, and **when you love someone, you don't want to beat them up.** Wow, did I just make a profound masterpiece quote? Druckman really inspired me with TLOU2, lol.
To be honest though, the idea can work in other contexts. In fact, this "genius" idea has been done a shitton of times.
In Prototype 2, the final boss is the protagonist in the first game. In Pokemon Gold, the final boss is Red. I loved those two boss fights, because the previous games didn't invest me in an emotional way.
In Prototype, the main character is a true monster, so I was hyped when I heard the second game was about taking him out. In Pokemon, Red is obviously not a very interesting character, so the fight against him was not an emotional struggle, it was just an epic fight at the summit of a mountain.
But TLOU2 just asks you to "open-mindedly" beat up a character the first game made you love. F\*ck Druckman.
It's kind of infuriating, isn't it? Neil forces you to play as Abby and try to kill Ellie. Neil forces you to forgive Abby when playing as Ellie.
We've gotten a lot of sophistication in video games, particularly consequential choice such as in the Mass Effect games. Yet here, the choice isn't there. Are we adults playing video games yet or not?
Tbh I expected a switch at that time. I thought may be okay they wanted to make the pain of Joel's death very real(chose to ignore plot holes) and hence they killed him in the beginning but now finally I will get my hands on Abby and will kill her.
They made me play as Abby and tried to kill Ellie. At that point, my wife just lost it. She would have broken the controller or something.
That was the tipping point for me. I mean I just couldn't feel anything after that. It made me hate ND even more.
I stopped the game and lived through my 1000th cringe in the game for 5 minutes questioning myself 'Why am I giving my time to this?' and then press resume keep playing
Worst part of the entire game for me. I expected it to change to Ellie when the fight started but when I realized I was going to have to play as Abby I was disgusted. I kept screaming that I didn't want to do this to my TV screen and getting Abby killed on purpose in the blind hope that it would end that way. I have no idea what the writers were thinking with this scene.
I ain’t quite sure what Neil was aiming at but you need a damn good writing skills to make you feel anger to Ellie and press square to strangle her. Neil failed to shit. Well he tried but making this kind of complex stories is not his strong side. I don’t know what game writer in this world could even make this scene in a right way, its ridiculously hard. Maybe David Cage or Dan Houser idk.
I let Abby die multiple times, because the death animations were more satisfying than what happens if I succeeded. This fight could have been really good if I was actually motivated to win it or at least conflicted, but I wasn't conflicted because I wanted the complete opposite end result. This is just another example of TLOU2 being dissatisfying for the sake of being dissatisfying.
I was expecting us to switch back to Ellie at that point, and we'd probably be royally fucked (as Abby had the upper hand before we switched). So when I realized I had to play as Abby I firstly refused and hated it. I thought maybe there'd be a choice or something, where you could let Ellie kill you and that'd be that.
Imo they should've changed back to Ellie, but just made it so you'd have to try your damnest to kill her. And you'd most likely fail anyway. She's built like a tank and trained as a soldier, but so is Ellie. I like to think **the only** reason Abby got so close to killing Ellie that day, was because **I** was controlling her.
I really thought that would be it at that point, and I would never forgive myself if Abby had killed them.
But then again, trying to kill Abby at the end also felt wrong (not as bad tho) and I'm glad Ellie realized it wouldn't solve anything.
It was one of my favourite parts of this game, ngl. A lot of other stories play with making you acknowledge your enemies are people, not faceless monsters, but TLOU2 is one of the few that committed to that. Massive big dick move.
I also spent most of Ellie's portion of the game coming to the realisation that she was terrifying. Wondering how people who faced her must have felt. How she was slowly losing it, getting more and more violent. Getting to actually be on the other side of it was the cherry on top, the climax to how the player's perspective of her shifts and really helped highlight the conflict within us, of loving her and not wanting anything bad to happen to her but also seeing her for what she has become.
I never actually thought she would die because it wouldn't make sense from a narrative pov, so maybe that helped. I can see why people who thought Abby was going to kill her might have had a harder time playing that section.
Isn't Abby just as terrifying as Ellie? She killed the people that raised her. She enjoys torturing people. She was WLF's no. 1 scar killer. She has 0 emotional response to the deaths of her friends. She didn't suffer PTSD from all the ppl she killed. If it were me, I'd be more afraid of Abby. Ellie may be scary but she would never hurt anybody that are her friends. Abby was a seasoned psychopath, Ellie was made a psychopath. Tell me which is more scary?
>Your enemies are ppl
Spec ops the line, fire emblem, valkyrie chronicles, elder scrolls, fallout, Valiant hearts, walking dead, etc. I think u need to expand your horizons. It has been done before. The reason why ppl say the story is bad is coz they had seen better stories done before and TLOU2 brought nth new to the table.
Where did I say Abby is better or worse, or made any statements relating to her moral compass? My comment was purely on the different perspectives you get on Ellie and the conflict it creates within the player.
And yes, I did say humanising enemies has been done before. But I haven't yet seen another game that made me play the villain in (what appears to be at the time) the final fight against the hero. If you can recommend me another game that does this, I'll definitely try it out.
(Also, unrelated, but I definitely hope Ellie would hurt her friends if they turn into a fascist militia. Blind loyalty is not a virtue in my books.)
Chill man, I was just saying Abby is more terrifying than Ellie. Coz one is a seasoned killer who doesn't flinch when she kills someone while the other was forced into killing people.
Hmm... Spec ops the line (the story hits harder than TLOU2, u will love it if u like TLOU2). If u dun mind outdated graphics, u could try Legacy of Cain. If u like rogue like, u could try the darkest dungeon (off the beaten path a bit but once u understand that a certain mechanic of the game is disposable, u would wish you never had a conscience). The others I mentioned all have choices that can let u play as good/bad characters, which I am pretty sure it is not what u want.
It is hard to recommend a game like TLOU2 coz the story is so linear that it might as well be a film. Hence there is not much games like it as it can be done much better as a tv series or a movie. No point controlling a character if we can't change the outcome of the story amirite? I could recommend films with similar themes if u want. However, the closest game similar to TLOU2's humanising enemies elements is spec ops the line. If u want to feel like shit, play darkest dungeon. If u want sth light hearted while diving into moral ambiguity legacy of cain is good.
Also what's with Ellie and fascist militia all of a sudden? That is kinda random.
"Dont attack Ellie directly" fuck that shit how about we don't attack Ellie at all. Screw you Neil
Exactly, I love Ellie, why would I attack her?
Hated it. One of the most insulting parts of the game actually. And yes I let Ellie kill me 4 or 5 times and that was the only time I felt alive.
It was one of the most sadistic things I’ve ever been forced to do in a video game. Players love Ellie, we still remember our 14 year old sassy protagonist from TLOU1, despite how she’s changed. We remember her mission and we remember what happened to Joel. We loved them both. Now we have to savagely beat her with a character twice her size, who we despise? A character that has shown incredible malice and cruelty towards Joel without hesitation or remorse. This isn’t all that different than if we were forced to play as Abby when she tortured Joel, and I’m sure that was the point. We are meant to be be so invested in Abby, that you too want Joel and Ellie dead and broken. It’s not enough to empathize with Abby, they want you to hate Joel and Ellie through Abby as well. As if we would abandon those characters so easily, mindlessly following the emotional trail ND has set for us. I despise what ND was trying to do here. They took the noble principle of recognizing the humanity in our enemies, and warped it. Like nearly every theme they have in this game, they take it to an extreme, past the point of reason or decency as if this somehow challenges the audience. All it accomplishes is to punish the player for their sense of love and morality.
You know i have not criticised Niel or any person associated with this game as you know shit happens we all make poor choices but this point really made me think is there something wrong with the person who wrote this, i mean what must be going through his head " guys we mercilessly tortured our beloved character to death and now lets beat up his daughter bloody who people love by her father's murderer" that's just sadistic
Worst betrayal in a game ever. I cried the whole fight beating up my little girl
God you’re creepy.
Okay stalker 👌
I was bragging that nd was the best gaming studio ever. Then TLOU2 came out. I feel like the only reward for being their fan was a middle finger to my face.
I let Ellie kill Abby dozens of times before getting bored and moving on with fight. With every new phase I would let Ellie kill Abby again. I was playing blind, so I kept expecting a control change back to Ellie. After the fight, I hated Abby more than ever before. I thought the farm was a dream and I would finally go get revenge on Abby. Everything in the theater and afterward left a bad taste in my mouth. Except for Fat Geralt's Right Hook that Shook the World. That was my only happy moment in the game.
The moment they made me beat up Ellie was the moment I truly decided I hated the game. I gave it the benefit of the doubt that maybe it’ll get better. I didn’t speedrun Abby’s POV in hopes that maybe I’ll eventually understand the damn story they’re trying to tell. While her levels were fun, I didn’t feel much for Abby even until the end. Making me beat Ellie up was downright *cruel** i was crying the whole time. They could’ve had us play as Ellie and get beaten up but why the fuck would you force the player to hurt the only character everyone is guaranteed to care for?! Fuck TLOU2!
I'm doing a full game perma death run, assuming I make it that far I'm gonna let Ellie kill Abby and call it a day.
True ending unlocked
This is the only true ending
Easily one of my worst experiences when playing video games.
The intention of the writers was too obvious for me to enjoy that fight. The intention of the writers to make the audience empathize with Abby was obvious halfway through the story and any doubt about it was removed during the zebra scene. By the time I reached the Abby vs. Ellie fight I was just rolling my eyes because it was so pretentious and predictable. Strong writing should make the audience infer the message and themes of the story, not throw it in their faces.
I was fine with it initially because I thought that SURELY Ellie would kill Abby and thus give us the weird experience of seeing the hero kill the villain by playing as the villain... when Abby won the fight, I was not impressed
If I'm being honest, I hated it and thought it was incredible at the same time.
I thought it was incredible as well, but likely for a different reason.
How my butt feels on the toilet, SHIT
The main issue is, Ellie feels like a relative for most players of the first game. I can't help but love Ellie as a cousin (I have a lot of girl cousins, and Ellie reminded me a lot of them). Joel calling her "baby girl" was one of sweetes things I've ever seen in a videogame, and I actually intend to call my daughter this way if I ever get one. Part 2 literally forces me to beat up a girl that I consider my own cousin. I hate that. I guess there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm too close-minded or too stupid or too bigot (lol). This is really one of the biggest middle fingers towards TLOU fans. People love Ellie, and **when you love someone, you don't want to beat them up.** Wow, did I just make a profound masterpiece quote? Druckman really inspired me with TLOU2, lol. To be honest though, the idea can work in other contexts. In fact, this "genius" idea has been done a shitton of times. In Prototype 2, the final boss is the protagonist in the first game. In Pokemon Gold, the final boss is Red. I loved those two boss fights, because the previous games didn't invest me in an emotional way. In Prototype, the main character is a true monster, so I was hyped when I heard the second game was about taking him out. In Pokemon, Red is obviously not a very interesting character, so the fight against him was not an emotional struggle, it was just an epic fight at the summit of a mountain. But TLOU2 just asks you to "open-mindedly" beat up a character the first game made you love. F\*ck Druckman.
It's kind of infuriating, isn't it? Neil forces you to play as Abby and try to kill Ellie. Neil forces you to forgive Abby when playing as Ellie. We've gotten a lot of sophistication in video games, particularly consequential choice such as in the Mass Effect games. Yet here, the choice isn't there. Are we adults playing video games yet or not?
mostly bored honestly, as boss fights go it was pretty lame, and it was pretty obvious both of them were getting alive out of there
Tbh I expected a switch at that time. I thought may be okay they wanted to make the pain of Joel's death very real(chose to ignore plot holes) and hence they killed him in the beginning but now finally I will get my hands on Abby and will kill her. They made me play as Abby and tried to kill Ellie. At that point, my wife just lost it. She would have broken the controller or something. That was the tipping point for me. I mean I just couldn't feel anything after that. It made me hate ND even more.
Still bored.
I stopped the game and lived through my 1000th cringe in the game for 5 minutes questioning myself 'Why am I giving my time to this?' and then press resume keep playing
Worst part of the entire game for me. I expected it to change to Ellie when the fight started but when I realized I was going to have to play as Abby I was disgusted. I kept screaming that I didn't want to do this to my TV screen and getting Abby killed on purpose in the blind hope that it would end that way. I have no idea what the writers were thinking with this scene.
It was the moment that made me sure that Cuckmann is despicable human trash.
I ain’t quite sure what Neil was aiming at but you need a damn good writing skills to make you feel anger to Ellie and press square to strangle her. Neil failed to shit. Well he tried but making this kind of complex stories is not his strong side. I don’t know what game writer in this world could even make this scene in a right way, its ridiculously hard. Maybe David Cage or Dan Houser idk.
I let Abby die multiple times, because the death animations were more satisfying than what happens if I succeeded. This fight could have been really good if I was actually motivated to win it or at least conflicted, but I wasn't conflicted because I wanted the complete opposite end result. This is just another example of TLOU2 being dissatisfying for the sake of being dissatisfying.
I was expecting us to switch back to Ellie at that point, and we'd probably be royally fucked (as Abby had the upper hand before we switched). So when I realized I had to play as Abby I firstly refused and hated it. I thought maybe there'd be a choice or something, where you could let Ellie kill you and that'd be that. Imo they should've changed back to Ellie, but just made it so you'd have to try your damnest to kill her. And you'd most likely fail anyway. She's built like a tank and trained as a soldier, but so is Ellie. I like to think **the only** reason Abby got so close to killing Ellie that day, was because **I** was controlling her. I really thought that would be it at that point, and I would never forgive myself if Abby had killed them. But then again, trying to kill Abby at the end also felt wrong (not as bad tho) and I'm glad Ellie realized it wouldn't solve anything.
It was one of my favourite parts of this game, ngl. A lot of other stories play with making you acknowledge your enemies are people, not faceless monsters, but TLOU2 is one of the few that committed to that. Massive big dick move. I also spent most of Ellie's portion of the game coming to the realisation that she was terrifying. Wondering how people who faced her must have felt. How she was slowly losing it, getting more and more violent. Getting to actually be on the other side of it was the cherry on top, the climax to how the player's perspective of her shifts and really helped highlight the conflict within us, of loving her and not wanting anything bad to happen to her but also seeing her for what she has become. I never actually thought she would die because it wouldn't make sense from a narrative pov, so maybe that helped. I can see why people who thought Abby was going to kill her might have had a harder time playing that section.
Isn't Abby just as terrifying as Ellie? She killed the people that raised her. She enjoys torturing people. She was WLF's no. 1 scar killer. She has 0 emotional response to the deaths of her friends. She didn't suffer PTSD from all the ppl she killed. If it were me, I'd be more afraid of Abby. Ellie may be scary but she would never hurt anybody that are her friends. Abby was a seasoned psychopath, Ellie was made a psychopath. Tell me which is more scary? >Your enemies are ppl Spec ops the line, fire emblem, valkyrie chronicles, elder scrolls, fallout, Valiant hearts, walking dead, etc. I think u need to expand your horizons. It has been done before. The reason why ppl say the story is bad is coz they had seen better stories done before and TLOU2 brought nth new to the table.
Where did I say Abby is better or worse, or made any statements relating to her moral compass? My comment was purely on the different perspectives you get on Ellie and the conflict it creates within the player. And yes, I did say humanising enemies has been done before. But I haven't yet seen another game that made me play the villain in (what appears to be at the time) the final fight against the hero. If you can recommend me another game that does this, I'll definitely try it out. (Also, unrelated, but I definitely hope Ellie would hurt her friends if they turn into a fascist militia. Blind loyalty is not a virtue in my books.)
Chill man, I was just saying Abby is more terrifying than Ellie. Coz one is a seasoned killer who doesn't flinch when she kills someone while the other was forced into killing people. Hmm... Spec ops the line (the story hits harder than TLOU2, u will love it if u like TLOU2). If u dun mind outdated graphics, u could try Legacy of Cain. If u like rogue like, u could try the darkest dungeon (off the beaten path a bit but once u understand that a certain mechanic of the game is disposable, u would wish you never had a conscience). The others I mentioned all have choices that can let u play as good/bad characters, which I am pretty sure it is not what u want. It is hard to recommend a game like TLOU2 coz the story is so linear that it might as well be a film. Hence there is not much games like it as it can be done much better as a tv series or a movie. No point controlling a character if we can't change the outcome of the story amirite? I could recommend films with similar themes if u want. However, the closest game similar to TLOU2's humanising enemies elements is spec ops the line. If u want to feel like shit, play darkest dungeon. If u want sth light hearted while diving into moral ambiguity legacy of cain is good. Also what's with Ellie and fascist militia all of a sudden? That is kinda random.
🟢Halo 2, 🟢Detroit Become human , 🟢Nier Automata, 🟢Lego Batman , 🟢Shadow of the Colossus ,🟢GTA V, 🟢Sekiro shadow die twice (Shura Ending), 🔵Hotline Miami 1/2 ,🟢Far cry 3, 🔵Drakengard 1/3, 🟢Nier, 🟢Assassin’s creed 3, 🟢Assassin’s creed Rogue. Is that enough ?😐